Is the era of the underdog official over at the French Open? Or will a surprise women’s champion emerge once more?
The three worst-ranked women’s French Open winners all won their surprise titles between 2017 and 2021. Zoom out a bit further, and you’ll see the four worst-ranked women’s champions at Roland Garros all happened in roughly 10 years.
The favorites seem to have reasserted their dominance in recent years. Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff combined to claim the last four French Open titles, each time as top-two seeds.
Get ready for the 2026 event with a look back at the five most unexpected French Open women’s champions.
Who were the most surprising French Open women’s champions?
Honorable mention: Surprises who weren’t surprises
Technically, Swiatek had the worst ranking of any French Open women’s winner when she won in 2020 as the No. 54 player in the world. However, for two reasons, I’m ruling her a non-surprise.
First, Swiatek was well on her way to a higher ranking until she missed the latter half of the 2019 season due to injury and was unable to make up the lost ranking points when the tour shut down due to COVID for the spring and summer in 2020.
Second, when your run at a Grand Slam is one of the most dominant of all time – and Swiatek’s 2020 run was as dominant as you’ll see - your victory can’t be considered a surprise.
Justine Henin technically was one of the worst seeds to win in Paris when she won as the No. 10 seed in 2005. She certainly wasn’t a surprise champion. Henin already had two majors to her credit by then. She was seeded so poorly only because she missed six months in late 2004 and early 2005 due to injuries.
#5 – Iva Majoli (1997)
At the time, Majoli was the worst-seeded French women’s champion in the Open era. She won the 1997 event as the No. 9 seed.
The result looks even more improbable with time. Majoli’s upset victory over top-seeded Martina Hingis in the final proved to be the only match that separated Hingis from a calendar-year Grand Slam in 1997.
Hingis won her first 35 matches of 1997. She beat Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Monica Seles, who would combine to win six French Open titles of their own, in the previous two rounds. She went on to win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
But she came up empty at Roland Garros. The final wasn’t close. Majoli won 6-4, 6-2.
Majoli was just 19 but never rose to such heights again. She reached the quarterfinals at two of the following four majors but was plagued by injuries in the latter half of her career, never advancing past the third round at another Slam.
#4 – Francesca Schiavone (2010)
Schiavone’s surprise run provided a glimpse of the future. She became the first Italian woman to win a Grand Slam title, foreshadowing a golden age of Italian tennis in the years to come.
Schiavone was also the first player outside the top 10 to claim the women’s title at Roland Garros in the Open era, foreshadowing an era filled with surprise winners in the decade to come.
Schiavone’s path to the title included a third-round victory against Li Na, who was destined to win the French Open the following year, followed by a quarterfinal win against frequent world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki and a semifinal victory against two-time major finalist Elena Dementieva.
Schiavone’s finals matchup against Sam Stosur was a rematch of a first-round pairing at Roland Garros the previous year. Stosur had won the previous year, but Schiavone took the more-meaningful encore, 6-4, 7-6.
Schiavone’s win wasn’t a total fluke – she made it to the quarterfinals or better at five majors between 2009 and 2011 – but was the most unexpected French Open run of the Open era up to that time.
#3 – Margaret “Peggy” Scriven (1933)
Scriven’s own national federation didn’t think she could win this title. Despite a Wimbledon quarterfinal appearance in 1931, Scriven was not included in the official team of British players that traveled to Paris for the 1933 French championships.
Scriven paid her own way to the tournament and was unseeded in the 49-player event. She beat fellow British players Mary Heely and Betty Nuthall back-to-back in the quarterfinals and semifinals. She outlasted future French champion Simonne Matieu in three sets in the final.
Eighty-four years passed before another unseeded player hosted the women’s trophy at Roland Garros. Scriven was also the first British player and the first lefty to win the French women’s title. It wasn’t a fluke. Scriven defended her title in Paris in 1934.
#2 - Barbora Krejčíková (2021)
A surprise winner was assured by the semifinals at the 2021 French Open. All four of the last four were first-time Grand Slam semifinalists.
Whoever won the final was destined to wind up on this list. Krejčíková was the third unseeded Roland Garros winner in five years (though at No. 33, she was just one spot away from being seeded). Her finals opponent was Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, ranked just one spot higher at No. 32. At the time, Krejčíková and Pavlyuchenkova were the combined lowest-ranked major finalists.
Krejčíková had been ranked No. 1 in the world in doubles, but the 2021 French Open was just her fifth singles main draw appearance at a Grand Slam. Her path to the title included five wins against seeded players, plus a victory against 2018 French Open finalist Sloane Stephens. She saved a match point against Maria Sakkari in the semifinals and outlasted Pavlyuchenkova in three sets in the final.
Krejčíková has been a boom-or-bust performer at majors since. She won Wimbledon as the No. 31 seed in 2024 and has four additional Slam quarterfinal appearances. She has also lost in the first week in 11 of 18 Grand Slam events.
#1 – Jelena Ostapenko (2017)
Maybe it was destiny. When Ostapenko won the 2017 French Open, she became the first player to win his or her first pro title at a major since Gustavo Kuerten in 1997. Kuerten won that title on June 8, 1997. Ostapenko was born on June 8, 1997.
At the time, Ostapenko was the lowest-ranked woman to win the French Open (No. 47) and the first unseeded winner in more than 80 years.
Ostapenko’s all-or-nothing style of play powered her through three-set victories in each of her last four matches. Ostapenko rallied from a 6-4, 3-0 deficit in the final against No. 3 seed Simona Halep. She also overcame a 3-1 deficit in the final set.
Ostapenko’s all-or-nothing style has produced mixed results since. She is famously unbeaten in six matches against Iga Swiatek, but also hasn’t gotten beyond the quarterfinals at a major since her magical French Open run in 2017.
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